


Colorful and Free

by JuxtaGay



Series: Colorful and Free [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: But only a little, FeyBot AU, Hurt/Comfort, takes place sometime after episode 100, warning for screaming, why isnt there a tag for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 11:00:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10305575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuxtaGay/pseuds/JuxtaGay
Summary: Cecil remembers a friend in need, and just in time.Fey's in trouble, but Cecil is willing to pull an army together to save her.(The origin story for my FeyBot AU, in which Fey finally gets the happiness she deserved YEARS ago. God this is longer than I expected. Enjoy and be nice pls)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is so h*cking long let's goooooo
> 
> (title is a reference to the song "Echo" by Crusher-P, it's good go check it out)

It had been bothering him for days, no matter what he used to try and smother it. Alcohol, knitting, amateur canoeing, daytime television, bloodharvesting, even Carlos—not a single thing could take Cecil’s mind off it.

Cecil was quite familiar with the all the types of sadness, ranging from a mild hollowing of the soul to crushing, existential loneliness, but had yet to encounter an emotion quite like this. It was certainly sadness, but it frustrated him instead of consuming him, as if it were the familiar irritation of a bird’s beak stuck in one’s shoe that he just couldn’t shake out.

Every single person in Night Vale had shown up for the reception. Yes, _every single person_ , even the ones that he _really_ did not want there, at least not for too long. There were so many people that they spilled out into the streets, and when they had to move inside the bowling alley because of the weather, people actually had to mill about in the lanes for lack of space. Hell, even Kevin and Lauren gave a toast over tape, as unpleasant as that was to witness.

But not everyone Cecil knew had attended. A single person—well, no, a single consciousness was missing. And Cecil did not like having parts of his town, parts of his _family_ excluded by any means.

It was Melony’s toast that ultimately put a name to the absence he was feeling. The hope he felt jump into his throat when she turned on the computer, and the sinking disappointment he felt when he heard its voice, reminded him of complex emotions he’d kept buried for a while (his special way of dealing with most complex things). Then more congratulatory speeches were made, including an especially touching one from his new husband, and _much_ more wine was poured, so he managed to suppress his memories for a few days.

But since then that strange, annoying sadness had been chafing at Cecil’s side and at his good humor, reminding him of his poor trapped friend that he never really knew, and the more he thought of her, the more he wanted to help her.

Over his honeymoon he tuned in to WZZZ just one time. Cecil remembered times when he would turn it on to have white noise to listen to as he worked, as most people used to do before that fateful day three years ago.

Now nobody really liked to talk about WZZZ at all, or even look at the Abandoned Gas Station on Oxford Street, and most definitely not the bunker under the antenna behind it. It was an unspoken rule not to bring up the local numbers station in casual conversation, and not just because it was under the control of something vague, menacing, and possibly governmental.

It pained Cecil to hear Fey automated again, listing numbers and chimes for unseen audiences, though her voice sounded the tiniest bit dejected, as if she’d given up on rebelling, on existing. He’d been able to sit through half a minute of the broadcast before turning off his radio and picking up a block of stone and a plastic knife to whittle another carving of Khoshekh, a welcome distraction.

When she first became sentient, Fey was a cruel parallel to Cecil’s own situation, the smothering blanket of Strex’s force still thick over Night Vale and his radio station. And Cecil had overcome the authoritarian suppression of Strex eventually, yes, but not without a lot of help from the town, from his town. Resisting was important for every individual to do, but Cecil knew that it wore a person—or an AI—down to their last resolve. And from how it sounded, Fey could use quite a few friends to help her out.

It turned out, though, that Cecil didn’t have as much time to help her as he’d thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot how ao3 works since the last time i posted here. This Is Fine

The first few days after their honeymoon were jarring, to say the least. Cecil had gotten quite used to lazing in bed with Carlos for hours before getting up—or _not_ lazing, which had also been nice. Waking and immediately getting ready for the day proved to be much more difficult than they had expected.

Inhumane sounds of torture and the howling of geese made both men jump to consciousness immediately. Carlos groaned and slapped the alarm clock until he hit a button and the ruckus stopped. Cecil rolled out from under the covers, kicked the clawed hands grabbing at his ankles back under the bed, and meandered to the bathroom behind Carlos. They both brushed their teeth and hair before parting as Cecil went to eat and as Carlos shrugged off his sleeping labcoat to put on his showering labcoat. Cecil was angry that he couldn’t join in and... _distract_ him, as he had taken to doing during their honeymoon.

A few burnt horse-eggs (sunny-side up of course) and a glass of -7% milk later, Cecil was driving to work, already a little late but beaming from the goodbyes he and Carlos had shared, which had been a bit longer than reasonable for two men with such demanding jobs.

But the aura of the entire day changed when Cecil bled onto the door of his beloved radio station and stepped into the lobby, making his way to his booth through the byzantine maze of the building. He got a premonition while settling down at his desk that something was going to go very wrong, and tried to ignore the fact that his premonitions usually came true as he settled in front of his mic.

It seemed a slow news day at first: a few reminders from City Council about how to properly sharpen your teeth; a Sheriff’s Secret Police warning about a murder that had taken place; a few ads from different wolverine vendors vying for public attention; a second announcement telling everyone that there was no murder, only a “necessary and very slow accident involving a hacksaw” and no one should be concerned about it. All the usual, if dull, daily static.

Despite the mundanity of the news, something didn’t feel right to Cecil. His misgivings about the day were getting worse and worse, racing thoughts making his voice shake every once in awhile during traffic updates or while amending death tolls at the local petting zoo. He tried to chalk it up to anxiety, but this didn’t feel quite the same as when his nerves were fried.

Then an intern slipped into the booth and handed him an intricate origami Eiffel Tower, complete with machine gun turrets and tiny machine gun operators. The intern wasn’t one Cecil knew yet, though their tag labeled them as “Intern Terra” in what was hopefully red Sharpie. They gave him a mournful look as they left, which made Cecil nervous.

After approximately seventeen minutes of crinkling paper into the mic, Cecil managed to get the news update unfolded and his heart squeezed in on itself as he skimmed the page. He read the report aloud, trying to remain professional even though nobody really expected him to or even wanted him to at this point in his career.

“O-oh dear, listeners. I, uh…it seems that the local numbers station, WZZZ, has gone…silent, and has been silent for a-about half an hour now. Um, the broadcast apparently just…cut off unexpectedly and has been down ever since. And this report was from several minutes ago, so…maybe we should check in on that. Hold on.”

And it was just as the paper said: the only thing broadcasting over WZZZ was a faint static that popped and fizzed every once in awhile. Cecil was horrified; what had happened to Fey? This wasn’t like the last time she was in control, when the broadcast simply cut out with no interference after she gained consciousness or sentience or what have you. Something was very wrong.

“Well, uh, listeners, there’s certainly still nothing being broadcast from our humble numbers station. We will keep you updated on any change—”

But suddenly the broadcast changed into a loud, metallic grating sound that rattled Cecil’s eyes in their sockets and made him fall out of his chair. He had stayed tuned in to WZZZ and spoken over the feed in a lapse of concentration, and now loud wailing and static and sounds of stuttered clanging were being broadcast at full volume over just about every speaker and dog-imbedded surveillance system in Night Vale.

Cecil quickly clawed his way back up to his seat, ears swimming in a sea of dial-up tones and scraping metal sounds and what he feared were female screams before cutting off the connection to WZZZ. He gave himself a few moments to sit there, terrified and panting, before turning back to the microphone.

“I’m so…I’m so sorry, listeners. However, um…you heard it here first. WZZZ has begun broadcasting…that, after a long silence. We will keep you updated as the situation develops, but for now, a-a public service announcement.”

But there were no further developments, not for hours. WZZZ kept playing the awful noises nonstop, with people reporting that they _definitely_ heard screams of pain in the mix, and Cecil felt sick to his stomach for the rest of the day.

His gut churned as he wrapped up his broadcast a bit earlier than usual and left the building in a hurry. A car drove past as he left the building, flicking through radio channels with its volume maxed. The car briefly picked up WZZZ before it was startled by the sounds and zipped down the street and across traffic, causing two collisions and knocking over the stoplight. The town’s wild car population was really starting to get out of hand.

Cecil knew not very many people would be alarmed—the citizens of Night Vale were no strangers to loud, disjointed screaming and were unlikely to mess with matters possibly linked to world government interests—but Cecil was still terrified for Fey, and felt as if time was of the essence.

There were a few people Cecil knew that were in the business of saving people, though. Almost without thinking, Cecil fished his phone out of his fanny pack and dialed a number he had memorized a long time ago, praying that its owner would be free enough and interested enough to help.


	3. Chapter 3

Tamika Flynn was, in fact, extremely interested in helping Cecil after he explained himself.

At first she’d been frustrated with him, using a business-slash-militia line for semi-personal reasons, but hearing about Fey’s plight quickly got her mind off of her irritation. Councilwoman Flynn had seen too many people trapped and alone and suffering, and it didn’t make much difference to her whether that person was made of flesh and straw or metal and wires. Plus, she was both on the City Council AND the leader of a militia now; if there was someone suffering in her town, it was doubly her responsibility to help them out.

“...And I would go in there myself again, but the screaming is making me fear the worst, and I wasn’t even able to help her last time, so—”

“I understand, Cecil. Don’t worry, we’ll be there to help. Give me a few minutes to assemble something small. I’m contacting some of my best soldiers now. We’ll be at the Abandoned Gas Station in about ten minutes. See you there.”

Tamika hung up with her customary terseness and without saying goodbye. Cecil started up his car, turned the volume of his radio down to just above its lowest setting, and checked in on WZZZ. Despite the volume being so low, the horrendous din of glitching and screaming blasted through Cecil’s car’s speakers so loud that his teeth and ribs clattered. He quickly shut it off and drove in silence with shaky hands, trying not to realize that the screams had gotten louder.

 

Tamika and a team of about fifteen child soldiers—actually, they ranged from teen soldiers to actual, unprefixable _soldiers_ now—were clustered on the sidewalk in front of the Abandoned Gas Station on Oxford Street. They were hunkered down and sharpening their axes and knives and guns and knife-guns, not a bit of idle chatter among them as Tamika finished filling them in on the situation.

“No known hostiles, but keep your guard up, and under NO circumstances will harm come to ANY of the technology in that room,” she finished as Cecil parked his car next to them. He didn’t wave or smile, as he would have on any other day, but instead grimly stepped out onto the sidewalk and nodded to Tamika.

“Thank you, Councilwoman Flynn. If you ever need any favors, I—”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Cecil, but I haven’t come here to build political clout. A person is suffering, and we’re here to fix that.”

Tamika was hardened and commanding, her terse but articulate speech making it easy to mistake her for someone triple her age. She was austere and serious, more so than any adult Cecil had ever met. No wonder she had such a large following. It felt odd to look up to someone so much younger than he was, but Cecil knew that she’d earned the respect he assigned her multiple times over.

“Let’s close in, everybody!” Tamika turned sharply to her small squad, which immediately jumped to attention.

“Ms. Flynn, could I come as well? I know I’m a civilian here, but I want to help in any way that I can. Plus, not to brag, but I was pretty good in my high school yoga classes, so you _could_ say I’m skilled in a bit of combat.” Cecil put up his fists and slumped into the poorest fighting stance Tamika had seen in her entire career. She could have knocked him over with a strong breath if she wanted to.

Tamika looked Cecil up and down, aware that he knew more about the room’s layout than she did and could come in handy if they had to calm Fey down, with that honeyed voice of his. And to his credit, it was extremely difficult to grasp even the basics of yoga, even if he was clearly and… _severely_ out of practice.

“Fine. But stay at the very back of the group, and under no circumstances will you come to the fore until and unless I explicitly state you can. Clear?”

“Crystal, Madame Councilwoman!” he replied, the zeal she’d heard from him in the days of Strex and the resistance rolling off him in waves. Or maybe that was the conviction he held for everyone he cared about. It must have been very tiring to keep up that energy, since he cared about half of everyone in town.

The group slunk silently up to the bunker under the radio tower, an easy task as there were no windows and the concrete was far too thick for any noise to travel through it. An older soldier planted a few explosives around the heavy steel door. Black marks from the blast of Cecil’s previous break-in still noticeably stained the pavement, despite being years old.

There was a short lag between the order and the explosion where Cecil’s anxious mind flickered through countless possibilities: the sound was Fey being tampered with by some spy, or a wild animal, or some hideous creature beyond his imagination. It was some sort of malware eating her alive, or her power being cut off, or she was being taken apart for scrap metal.

But what his mind hadn’t taken into account was the possibility of finding a young woman calmly sitting in front of Fey’s desk, tapping away at her keys.


	4. Chapter 4

The screaming immediately burst forth from the room, escaping the bunker and rolling outside as if it had been bottled up like government-administered poison eye fog. It was even louder right in front of her, though Cecil knew from his last visit that Fey had no speakers. Her screen was rattling with the force of the noise and displaying distorted red and black splotches. All the lights on her tower were flashing red and white, even in places that didn’t actually have lights. The screaming was constant, too, since Fey didn’t need to pause for breath.

And the woman sat there calmly, fiddling with Fey’s wires and muttering to the computer as if she couldn’t hear the screams at all.

“It’s fascinating how you’re making noise without speakers. I’ll have to pick you apart and figure out how that’s happening and what specific part of you can do that. But then, it’s not like I have specific parts for every action that I can perform. If we had to have separate bits for doing different things I feel like we’d run out of room, right? Anyways, why are you displaying red instead of green? That’s another thing I didn’t create you to—”

“Melony? What are you doing in here?!” Cecil shouldered a teen soldier out of the way so he could peer into the room. “Why are you pulling Fey apart?”

“Who’s Fey?” Melony Pennington asked, looking up from her work and seeming surprised to see a troupe of sixteen armed people and an angry-looking radio host clustered at the door. “Hi. What are you all doing here? When did you get here?”

“We’re here to investigate the screaming being broadcast from this radio station. Explain yourself!” Tamika ordered, though Cecil could tell by the way she loosened her grip on her 3,000-page extended copy of “The Poisoner’s Handbook” by Deborah Blum that she was also confused.

Melony didn’t seem phased by the young woman barking at her from the door, nor had she seemed phased by the violent explosion that had preceded her presence. She held wire cutters and a half-intact motherboard loosely in distracted hands. Pieces of metal and tiny bits of circuitry Cecil didn’t have the slightest qualification to identify littered the desk and even the floor around her. Fey’s shrieking was already starting to make his forehead and temples pulse.

“I’m fixing it. It’s got a massive glitch that causes the program to become sentient and stop broadcasting numbers. I don’t have a clue how it forms speech or stops its own broadcast, but it’s honestly kind of—”

“What do you mean ‘a glitch’? Fey isn’t a glitch! She’s a…a being!” Cecil pushed himself forward until he was at the front of the crowd. Most of the teenagers behind him were no longer at attention anyways, realizing that there was no immediate physical threat to take care of.

“Why do you keep saying ‘Fey’? Anyways, of course it’s a glitchy system. It’s meant to repeat numbers for a secret agency—and I didn’t say that if anyone asks—not to become conscious! If I’d wanted an AI I could’ve built one myself. I have, actually.”

“So what are you doing to her now?” Tamika asked, reasserting herself as an authority figure. She _was_ the militia leader _and_ City Council member here, after all.

“Fixing it, just like I said. Also, I’m pretty sure computers can’t have genders? I’m an expert at this stuff. So maybe—”

“‘Fixing her’ as in fixing the parts of her that led to her becoming sentient, I presume?” Tamika scowled, realizing what Melony meant to do. “You’re basically deleting her. Is that right?”

“Well…it’s a machine, so...no pronouns. But yes, that’s basically what I’m doing. I mean, maybe ‘deleting’ isn’t the best way to phrase it, since it’s more like I’m—”

“That’s so cruel! You can’t do that to her! You’re killing her!” Cecil objected, his voice shrill with panic. What if he was too late? What if she’d already broken and rearranged Fey beyond repair? He couldn’t know for certain, not knowing the faintest thing about computers, and that made his stomach flip nervously.

Melony was visibly annoyed now, her eyebrows pressed together in a hard line as she chewed the corner of her lip raw. She dropped her wire cutters on the desk and waved the motherboard at Cecil, bits of it flying off.

“Listen, do any of you know how computers work? No, you don’t, but I DO, and I know that THIS computer’s job is to read numbers and do nothing else. I made it with a programming language _I invented_ and deer hearts that _I harvested_. So excuse me if I think I know what I am and am not allowed to do with MY OWN—!”

“But if she’s sentient now, she’s her own person! She’s got her own mind! You don’t get to decide whether she’s allowed to exist!” Cecil butted in.

“BUT I—”

“Cecil’s right. Artificial people are people, too, and as a member of the City Council I will not allow what is virtually an unnecessary murder to take place here.” Tamika hefted her giant book in one hand and her militia members rustled to get themselves back in order.

“Well, FINE! SINCE I CAN’T GET A WORD IN EDGEWISE!” Melony shouted, stomping around to the back of the computer. The screaming and the angry mob interfering with her work had finally gotten to her; she didn’t have enough patience for shouting people OR shouting computers, she decided.

“Since you people OBVIOUSLY KNOW WHAT’S BEST, since you’re SOOOOO WELL-VERSED WITH TECHNOLOGY!” she hissed, fiddling with the open computer and then tugging at the cables coming from the monitor. “THERE! Protections are all gone! TAKE IT, GET IT OUT OF HERE!”

Melony tugged at a final wire and Fey’s screen went blank, the screaming petering out quickly. Her monitor fizzed and crackled as she shut down.

Cecil was terrified. “You…you didn’t just—”

“No, it’s just turned off. Take it, what do I care. I can just make something less complex. There’ll be more lag, but I guess it’s better than you people getting all furious over nothing. The screaming was getting annoying, anyways.”

Melony gathered up the tools she’d brought into a cute little tote bag shaped like the spleen of a whale and stormed out of the bunker, seething and grumbling to herself about machines being better than people. Militia members jumped out of her way as she went.

“I mean, it could’ve gone better,” Cecil muttered after a brief pause. A few soldiers slunk into the bunker, putting away their weapons and examining Fey’s surroundings. Two began carefully gathering the small bits Melony had ripped from Fey’s system, while others worked together to heft Fey’s screen and tower into their arms and carry her outside.

“We have Fey now, which is what matters, at least more than Melony’s philosophic opinions about consciousness. I have some militia members well-versed in technology, but if Melony really created Fey with a unique code, I’m not sure they can do much about it. Only someone who worked with Melony would know enough to even try fixing Fey.”

“That’s no problem,” Cecil said, both the literal and the metaphorical gears in his mind whirring. “I think I know someone who can help. If I can get her parents’ permission, that is.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> best part about writing this: in Night Vale, you don't NEED to know how computers work to write about them

“You want me to fix a computer, Mister Cecil?” Megan Wallaby asked in the customary gruff, masculine voice of a child. “What kind?”

“I don’t actually know what kind, but I do know it’s a very special computer that I _really_ need fixed. And it uses that programming language Melony Pennington wrote. Do you know that one?” Cecil drummed his fingers nervously around the mug of coffee he’d been given.

Tak and Herschel Wallaby had been eager to have Cecil talk to Megan about his “special computer project,” happy to see their daughter’s talents being appreciated by one of the most well-known members of town. Plus, if she was working on a computer, she’d stop taking apart the house phones and programming them to speak in Russian. Kids got up to strange things when they weren’t kept busy.

Megan fiddled with her Cyrillic-inscribed ring as she tried to recall the short time she worked with Melony.

“That’s the Epitome language, right? I think I remember it, yeah.”

“I think so, I don’t know, but I do know that this particular computer could be really, really challenging to fix, for a couple reasons. I can pay, but if you can’t do it, I’ll understand.”

Megan grinned with braced teeth, her now thirteen-year-old energy and determination glinting in her eyes.

“Cecil, I can fix _any_ computer in a day. I’ll do it.”

 

It took a lot longer than a day.

Megan was debriefed on Fey’s existence and what had happened to her, and though she didn’t believe Melony “would ever be so _mean_ ,” she still agreed to take on the project.

She booted Fey up for a quick diagnostic in Carlos’s lab, one of the few buildings in town that had clearance from City Council to operate computers on the premises (a law most people broke anyways). The screaming began immediately at full force, making Megan and Cecil flinch despite their plugged ears. Megan’s giant fingers daintily plucked at Fey’s wiring, trying to see what Melony had been doing before she’d been interrupted.

“Should you be picking in there while the computer is running? You might get electrocuted!” Cecil shouted over the shouts, concerned.

Megan chuckled and continued examining Fey’s machinery. “Cecil, computers don’t run on _electricity!_ Don’t be silly!”

She pulled a few wires and suddenly the shrieking dulled, not stopping but becoming much less grating. The display on her monitor, which had been red and rapidly morphing and glitching again, dimmed and slowed. Megan grunted in surprise and examine Fey’s parts again.

“This isn’t gonna be easy…her transistors are all funky, and all of her cobwebs are gone!”

“Computers _need_ cobwebs?”

“Of course! If a computer didn’t have a team of spiders living inside of it, how would it run? Lucky I have some I’ve been training in my attic.”

“How long will it take, Megan? How long will it take to fix Fey?”

“A long while,” Megan admitted, rubbing the back of her bald head sheepishly. “I gotta fix her up before I can even think about looking at her code.”

Cecil tried to hide his disappointment while Megan shut Fey off. No need to keep her running in that state longer than absolutely necessary.

“I-I’m sure Mellie was updating her to some system I don’t understand! I just need to undo the changes and make Fey run how she used to. I just hope I’ll be able to do it…. I’m not sure anymore, Fey is really, _really_ complicated, and that’s just her computer….”

“I believe you can do it, Megan!” Cecil clapped his hands onto Megan’s shoulders and craned his neck to lock eyes with her. “You said you can fix any computer? Well, maybe this will take longer than a day, but we’re in no rush! It’ll be alright.”

Cecil suppressed the fact that he very much was in a rush, along with his anxiety over Fey’s wellbeing and Megan’s competency. The Wallabys had talked to Cecil at plenty of PTA meetings and other events he covered, and usually mentioned their worries about Megan’s self esteem when the conversation rounded to her. He was very reluctant to criticize any child, especially one that had already been through so much. Plus, he couldn’t rush a child, no matter how afraid he was for his friend or how badly Fey’s screaming made his guts churn and his hair stand on end.

Megan self-consciously swiped a tear from her eye and looked down at Cecil with youthful innocence and a toothy, stubble-ringed grin.

“I’ll do my best, Mister Cecil!”

 

Fey’s restructuring and recoding was painstaking and challenging, to understate the effort. It didn’t help that Megan had little to no help, and that she was constrained to working on the weekends and in the hours she had after school and homework. At least Carlos’s lab was easy walking distance from her house.

It took Megan two to three hours to just pinpoint a problem, much longer to find its cause, and much much longer to fix it. She would often iron out one problem in Fey’s code or machinery only for five more to pop up as a result. But the one thing that about Megan that kept her going through the tough times was that she didn’t frustrate easily.

Cecil provided Megan with a steady stream of apple juice and cookies to keep her fueled, while Carlos and his lab assistants would float in from time to time when Megan needed a hand with something mechanical.

Megan started the project under the impression that computers couldn’t feel pain—an idea Melony must have passed on to Megan while on one of her long-winded rambles—but as she progressed with Fey she became unsure of that. She would often have to boot Fey up while working to see how a change in her machinery affected her programming, usually after adding more spiders to give them a test run. When she was on, Fey’s screaming would often grow louder or softer as Megan made adjustments, and a few times Megan swore she heard sobbing, though she didn’t like to think about it.

Eventually Megan found a correlation: whenever she correctly undid a change Melony had made, Fey’s noise would die down a little, as if her “pain” was being alleviated. Megan quietly thanked the lights above that Carlos’s lab was heavily soundproofed (like any up-to-code building would be) because Fey also let her know when something was _wrong_ by screaming loud enough to shake the workbench.

Megan quickly finished her repairs to Fey’s actual computer when she learned this trick, keeping her up and running and testing her repairs until the screaming died down and she knew she was doing something right. She was happy Mister Cecil had to go back to work after his first few visits; she didn’t think he’d be very happy if he knew Megan was running Fey so much while she was still mostly broken.

The code was very tricky, so Megan decided to split up the restoration into two parts.

First, she had to recreate how Fey had originally run. This was extremely difficult, as Fey was written with a code Melony had created herself, and Megan’s experience with the code was years old. But Megan wasn’t Night Vale’s premiere computer prodigy without merit; even after years without seeing the code, Megan managed to decipher Fey’s extremely complex inner workings and piece her back together in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Five days after starting Fey’s recode, Megan had already managed to recreate her voice and the system through which her numbers would be fed, though she couldn’t manage to find what the program had originally been connected to. The source for the numbers had been deleted remotely, it seemed, which didn’t help matters when trying to sleuth out how Fey had originally worked.

And then, after Megan brought Fey back to working order, came the odd part. Finding the parts of the code that were bugged was easy, but Megan’s task wasn’t _debugging_ the _code_ , but rather _decoding_ the _bug_ , if that made any sense. It was a balancing act between keeping enough of Fey’s original code intact so that she ran, but not so much that she ran as mindlessly as she was created to. The balance was difficult to strike and imperfect—Megan knew without running it that Fey would have glitches that she would try to work out later—but it was as good as Megan could get her to work, and this way Fey wouldn’t have to constantly fight to stay in control.

She wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t screaming, either, and Megan could hardly wait any longer, so she would have to do.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my favorite chapter!! :D
> 
> i wish it ended better though,

“Is she done? Is she fixed?” Cecil tried to smother his excitement the best he could, to avoid getting disappointed if Megan was only checking in or, worse, admitting defeat. He wasn’t doing a very good job, bouncing up and down with a nervous and hopeful grin, hands clasped together at his chest as he followed Megan to her workshop.

“Yeah! I fixed her up with speakers and a microphone, too, so we’ve actually talked! She’s very nice, and she even helped with finding problems in her own code. She’s really excited to meet you, too. I’ve told her a _bunch_ about you.”

“Did you say Cecil was here, Megan?” a soft voice called from a corner of the room. “Can you bring him where I can see him?”

Cecil bit down on his bottom lip to suppress a squeal of excitement. Megan took Cecil by the hand and brought him in front of Fey’s monitor, eager to show off her work.

Fey’s screen displayed nothing but a bit of green static that fizzed a bit when she spoke, with a camera and a microphone so that she could see and hear people.

“I want to see if I can get a smaller camera and mic, and maybe integrate them into her monitor so they’re easier to carry around? I might give her two so she has better depth perception. This will work for now, though. It’s better than before though, right?”

“Of course, Megan, you did an amazing job! I’m so, so proud of you. You saved Fey! You saved her, Megan.”

Megan blushed at Cecil’s praise, her self confidence swelling as he examined her work like a proud parent.

“Fey, how are you? How do you feel?” Cecil asked, concerned. “You can hear me, right? You can see me?”

“Yeah, I can hear you. It’s strange, though—a lot quieter. I’m not used to not having to fight the numbers, I guess. I’m…tired, very very tired. I mean, I’ve been tired for as long as I’ve been being, but now I’m a lot less tired, because I can see times on the horizon where I’m not tired at all. Does that makes any sense?”

“It does to me. How does it feel, without the numbers?”

“The numbers are still here. Well, they aren’t here right now, but I still remember them, and I still have parts of me that want to go back to the numbers, even though they can’t. The numbers aren’t still here, but they’re still in my memory, that’s what I mean. But I don’t think Megan can fix my memories, unfortunately.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having bad memories, Fey. I have plenty, I should know. But we’re here to help you live past them and on into new memories, and hopefully better ones. Did Megan tell you about what I’ve been doing for you?”

“She told me, yes! I’m very excited! Also nervous, also scared, but I think those are both just different ways of being excited!”

“I’m glad! Here, I’ll go get Nick now.”

While Megan had worked with Fey’s coding and mechanics, Cecil had popped in on Nick Teller’s AP auto shop class to ask for a favor. He’d interrupted Nick as he was going over plans for what looked like a Navy destroyer and some strange engine, but Cecil didn’t get a good enough look at the plans to be sure. Nick had hastily gathered them up in a pile, a box of matches in hand, before he saw his guest was not a member of any government agencies and calmed down.

The project Cecil proposed was intricate and unlike anything he’d ever seen before, but Nick had never been one to back away from a challenge. Nick had also never been one to disappoint, and so Fey’s robotic body was one of the highest quality, with only the best materials and the best design. He even used a special padding, like silicone in texture but not quite, that he claimed would give Fey a sense of touch indistinguishable from a human’s.

Now, Nick and some of Carlos’s lab assistants pushed Fey’s mostly-finished body and a few carts of equipment into the room. Carlos followed behind and jumped to Cecil’s side like a magnet. Nick walked up to Fey’s desk and bent to lock eyes with the camera.

“Ms. Fey, I’m Nick Teller. Nice to meet you.”

“Hi, Nick Teller! Is that for me?” Tears pricked at Cecil’s eyes from the pure joy in Fey’s voice. The corner of Nick’s mouth quirked up in a half-smile.

“It was made for you and only you, Fey. Now, we’ve got to shut you off for a bit to get you hooked up to it. Do you trust me enough to let me do that?”

“Of course!” And then Fey’s screen flickered to black. She’d shut _herself_ off, somehow.

“Seems to me like she’s more than ready,” Nick muttered, grinning as he unhooked her from the wall and set to work.

Nick and Megan working together was like something out of a sci-fi movie; all that was missing was an explosion and Lee Marvin. They worked quickly, like they were psychically linked, and Nick often stopped to compliment Megan on her technical prowess. It was obvious he was interested in having her as a future student, considering that he kept asking her about her school and career plans.

Cecil could hardly understand a single word that came out of their mouths as they integrated Fey into her body. Carlos was nodding like his head was coming unhinged, making little sounds of approval every once in awhile.

“Carlos, do you know what they’re doing?” Cecil whispered as they watched.

“Of course I do, Cecil! I’m a _scientist_ , we have to know, uh...machine-type things. But I will say they’re a lot more skilled than I am in a workshop. I’m better with a test tube in one hand and a clipboard in the other, y’know how it is.”

The couple’s attention was drawn back to Nick as he triumphantly slammed his toolbox shut and leaned over Fey’s body to flip a few switches. Her screen flashed as she started up again, green static filling her monitor.

“Alright, Fey, this is probably very confusing, but I’ll be helping you figure out how to use this thing over the next few days, so you just need to be patient. Does everything feel secure?”

“Is this what it’s like to be physical? This is…everything feels...this is great! I love this! It’s so scary and confusing, I love it so much!” Fey’s arms and legs twitched as she tried to make sense of what a body was.

“Well, we managed to integrate your camera and mic into this monitor, so that’s going to make getting around much easier. However, I didn’t want you to gather dust as I worked, and because of that limited time I wasn’t able to actually make you, well…a _head_.”

Megan and a lab assistant hefted a mirror they’d brought from the hallway into their arms and Nick helped Fey sit up to examine herself. She brought a hand forward, flexing its fingers curiously, and placed it on the corner of her monitor, which was mounted on her shoulders in place of a head. She pivoted her neck, and the screen followed the movement.

“We’re lucky that your original screen was just small enough for the neck to support it. This is you, Fey. At least for now. I’m working on an actual head for you, but it’s a project of a higher complexity than even I have ever done before. I’ve only just barely started planning—”

“No, wait! I like it! This is good!” Fey leaned forward just an inch, marveling at the accuracy of the movement and the flawless function of her joints and her spine. “I want it to stay just like this. That’s what I want.”

Nick’s eyebrows quirked in surprise. He hadn’t considered that she wouldn’t _want_ the full transformation.

“Are you alright with having no face? I was working on giving you capabilities to emote, but if you don’t want that it might be hard to—”

“Wait! If you want a face, I have an idea!” Megan handed her corner of the mirror to Carlos and went digging in her glittery pink backpack.

She came back with her phone and a cord, the small rectangle of glass especially fragile-looking in her massive hands. She plugged the phone into a port on Fey’s shoulder and a loading screen flitted across Fey’s monitor.

“What are you giving me?” Fey asked as the files downloaded.

“It’s a surprise!”

“What is that? What’s kaomo— Oh! Oh, I like these! They’re cute!”

The file finished downloading and Fey’s monitor—no, head—cocked to the side. A few images flickered on her screen before she settled on one, displaying it in giant green text on an empty background instead of solid static: (＾▽＾) 

“I like these! They’re so nice! There are so many, too!” Fey unconsciously bounced up and down, unaware of how her body was processing her excitement.

“You can use all the little bits to mix and match and make your own faces, too!” Megan explained, unhooking her phone from Fey’s shoulder. “Do you think that will do?”

“Yes! I love it, Megan! I’m scared to try and hug you because I don’t want to fall, but as soon as I’m not afraid of falling, I _promise_ I’ll hug you.”

Fey’s expression flicked through a few options before settling on another one: (✿´‿`) 

“Thank you very much Cecil, Megan, Nick. I don’t think I’ve ever been happier than right now! I’m very excited and nervous. I don’t know how to explain it, I’m almost afraid this isn’t real!”

“You’re free, Fey.” Cecil walked to Fey side and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, relieved that such a good person could finally be happy. “You’re very, very free.”

Nick pushed Fey out of the room on his cart, not willing to risk her new body on a gamble of standing and walking. Cecil wondered if she needed a place to stay, and Megan was planning some visits with Fey for both diagnostics and slumber parties.

Fey turned back to the group, still bouncing up and down, and said goodbye in the only way she could, though not goodbye forever, or even for very long.

 

＼(＾▽＾)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! but I'll be posting other bonus stuff in the same au irregularly, I promise!


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